Cookies & Internet Privacy

When you visit Yamaha Music London's website (www.yamahamusiclondon.com) and your browser's set to accept cookies, that tells us that you're happy to accept cookies and for us (and other companies) to use other mechanisms to maintain and enhance the Yamaha Music London website. If you change your browser settings so that you no longer accept cookies, you won't be able to add anything to the Yamaha Music London basket and hence won't be able to place an order.

Cookies – what they are, how they work and why we use them

Our cookies are small files containing a unique reference number. They're created by our website and sent to your computer's browser (and subsequently stored on your computer). They take virtually no space up and are there so that our website can tell that you're the same person as you move from page to page, or when you add an item to the shopping basket.

They also allow you to stay signed in to our site which can be handy if you're a regular visitor (don't worry, we don't store your card details) and let you keep items in your basket for several days before ordering them.

As well as letting you order from the Yamaha Music London website, the cookies also allow us to keep a log of what happened whilst you visited – this helps us to resolve problems if things go wrong (for instance, if your computer crashes just as you were about to order a lot of books, we might be able to find out what those books were and help you place the order by phone instead). Additionally, cookies can sometimes be useful in alerting us to fraudulent activity and may help us maintain the security of the website.

Do only Yamaha Music London cookies get stored when visiting the Yamaha Music London website?

Yamaha Music London works with or uses several other companies and services to give you the best possible experience when you visit our site. For instance, some of our pages include videos and audio which aren't stored on Yamaha Music London's website. These can be useful for explaining the various features of the products we sell, they may help show you around our store, or might include footage of an event we've held.

These are usually hosted by another company - YouTube for instance. By visiting a page which shows a YouTube video, YouTube will also send your browser a cookie to identify your computer, or activate a cookie you're browser has received when watching a YouTube video previously (either via the Yamaha Music London website, YouTube's own site or another website). We don't share any information about you with other companies so YouTube et al won't know who you are, but by keeping a record of the videos you've watched, it's possible that the third party will use that information to suggest other videos/photos/songs etc to you that you may find interesting, or use it to show you advertisements based on those videos. Some websites may also guess at your location (usually based on location data, IP address or past searches) which can help the third party tailer advertisements and suggested content.

We also use Google's Analytics service to measure our website's performance – as with YouTube (and similar services), Google will also send your browser a cookie but again, Yamaha Music London doesn't share any of your personal details with Google or any other company.

(Yamaha Music London has no control over how Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services use the data they collect via cookies but we always only ever include services on the Yamaha Music London website we believe will enhance your experience as a customer or help us maintain performance and security.)

All modern browsers let you change the way cookies and other sensitive data are handled. For instance, most Mac and Windows browsers let you see exactly which cookies have been stored on your computer (by that browser), where they came from and they let you delete any you don't want. Even modern mobile browsers let you change some settings about how cookies are dealt with.

To change your privacy settings, you'll usually need to go to the preferences, tools or options panel for your browser. Every browser is different (and a single browser may change as it evolves through different versions) but you'll probably find a privacy or internet data control box (the following image is taken from Apple's Safari browser for OSX):

On an iOS device (if you're using Mobile Safari), going to Settings > Safari will give you the main options:

Remember that many websites (especially retail websites like Yamaha Music London) won't be able to function properly if you prevent them from storing cookies – you may be unable to place an order (or even sign in).

If you have any questions or concerns about how Yamaha Music London records your data, please feel free to contact us via this page.